🔗 Share this article

Turns out he endured losing against Grimsby. Survive losing a crucial European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He could survive losing at home to domestic rivals, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, laying waste to the team's most promising homegrown talent, a poor winning percentage, labeling his team the worst in Manchester United history. But there was a single opponent with whom Ruben Amorim would not be allowed to dance. If you challenge Jason Wilcox, and you best not miss.

Regrettably, like many a Premiership defender during Blackburn Rovers' championship 1994-95 season, the coach took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. Even the most casual observer will notice the irony here: a coach who frequently berated his squad for losing individual battles succumbing in the face of the white heat and formidable presence of one of England's top division's most feared sporting directors.

And frankly, this whole painful saga seems to paint the director in a different perspective. Perhaps it might have been tempting, given his brief stint in a similar role with the Saints, to regard him as merely a functionary within the club's structure: an individual whose appointment was due largely to his friendship with ex-colleague Omar Berrada as any verifiable talent. How mistaken everyone was. In brilliantly outmanoeuvring the club's celebrated head coach, just as he bested the unfortunate Dan Ashworth earlier, Jason Wilcox has proved himself to be among the sport’s true generals: a strategic mind that United’s mid-table rivals will now be justifiably concerned.

The Strategic Conflict Over Formation and Ideology

For example, it was Jason Wilcox who having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the 3-4-3 fundamentalist Amorim originally, played a key role in attempting to convince him to abandon his favored formation. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties were resisted. But perhaps such directives carry more weight when issued by a man of a man the impeccable football pedigree he possesses, holder of three England caps and a contributor to a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time Jason Wilcox may be persuaded to outline his reasoning to the rest of us. Maybe one day he might be asked regarding why the coach is departing with a full payout, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, for excellent reasons. The real thinkers in football – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – function on a plane beyond our own mundane comprehension. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear is a series of high-frequency signals and four-dimensional whirring. Desiring an explanation is not the same as being ready to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Power In Command

But of course, by focusing our attention on Jason Wilcox we are obscuring the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, after all, merely executing the commands of his ultimate superior Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who privately has emphasized his desire for a back four. According to reports, Ratcliffe has also proposed deploying the forward as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for United to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he declared that the team's approach to football “shall be determined by this group”.

After all, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his background in petrochemicals and yachting. Above all he is incredibly rich, and as we all know, the wealthy are superior: more insightful, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Whom else could one trust to manage a strategic plan of cost-cutting, the construction of a new stadium that looks similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

The New Football Hierarchy: Executives Over Managers

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. For decades, clubs foolishly entrusted big footballing decisions to low-level employees like managers, talent spotters – even footballers. Maybe previously possible for a young, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to go into an organization and implement their plan supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have these guys established? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to place genuine authority where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the open-necked shirt brigade, the guys with impressive LinkedIn profiles. It is wiser to determine the tactics by the directors and hire a coach who will adapt their methods to suit. If coaches were once chefs, they have become more like delivery personnel: not responsible for the food, but still finally accountable should it be delivered cold or leaks out of the box.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the receptionist of the operation, the public face of an organisation they have minimal power to influence. Enzo Maresca takes a squad of literal children into Europe and wins domestic cups, and essentially gets sacked for speaking out. Wilfried Nancy finds his standing damaged whereas the people who hired him continue to make errors another day.

The Neoliberal Game: Accountability Only for the Few

And perhaps in a small way this is simply corporate governance in action: the rise of a gilded overclass who are infallible, whose decisions are always sacrosanct, whose errors can always be sacked away without explanation. Hire the system coach and then fire them for playing excessively 3-4-3. Hire the process guy and then bin them for taking excessive time. And above all be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the fact that the grownups – regardless of their expertise – are in charge.